FatFonts is a dedicated typeface for infographics

FatFonts is an
information visualisation project by Miguel Nacenta, Uta Hinrichs
and Sheelagh Carpendale which aims to visually represent the
relative values of numbers. This means creating a numerical
typeface where, for example, the number four takes up twice the
number of pixels or amount of printer ink on the page as the number
two. By building some of the concepts that numbers represent into
their visual structure the team hope to eliminate the distance
between data and graphical expression.

"Pictures are great for many reasons," says Miguel,
"But there are a lot of things that you can do with numbers in a
much better way than with colours or shapes; for example, compare
them, multiply them etc. So, could we bring them together?"

Many sessions of brainstorming, sketching and
refining (plus a lot of typographic design books -- Bringham's Elements of Typographic Style among them) later and the result
is several iterations of FatFonts, the most intelligible being Cubica and Gracilia. The former is a boxy set of nine numbers (zero is
currently the same as a blank data point -- plain white space)
moving from slight to heavy and with a definite early
science-fiction character to them. The latter, as the name
suggests, a more curvy, graceful option.

In theory any data set involving numbers could be
rendered with these FatFonts, but Miguel explains that some types
of information lend themselves to the format better than others.
"Anything that can be represented in a heat map can be adapted to
FatFonts and it will give you the extra accuracy of being able to
read the numbers.

"Posters and large-resolution wall displays are
particularly interesting -- if you come closer, you can read the
data, but if you really want to look at the big picture, then it is
really easy to step back. We also were considering scientists as a
main group of interest, since those often care about small
differences which are easy to spot with FatFonts. People are
already using these to represent, for example, flood evacuation
risks in the Netherlands and social network data."

But, with larger value data needing representation,
the team needed to work out how to show multi-digit numbers with
the same visual accuracy. Their solution is firmly rooted in
computer science -- that of recursive nesting. Single digits sit,
one tenth of the scale, within the numbers representing tens, while
the tens, in turn, sit within the hundreds. At this point the
system only represents numbers up to 999 but the basic concept
would in theory allow for infinite expansion.

The font is very much still a work in progress and
the team are still working to iron out problems -- the most notable
issue being that the seven threatens to overpower the eight and
nine in terms of visual clout. "The digit seven was the trickiest
to design because it traditionally has a highly simple and narrow
shape but it represents a relatively high value," explains Uta.

"We found that if we thickened the stroke of the
seven too much, it would visually dominate the eight despite its
lower value. We tried to work around this problem by reiterating
the shape of the seven or by adding a horizontal stroke that is
common in Europe and America. We can only claim partial success,
and you might want to choose a different variant of the fonts that
we created depending on how much this problem with the seven
bothers you."

Sevens aside, the team are encouraged by the
responses so far to FatFonts and, while on the lookout for a
multi-disciplinary student to work with them on their own ideas,
they hope others will also adapt the concept and make it their
own.

"We are hoping that people will help evolve the
project by suggesting and trying out alternatives, and especially,
by making the fonts more easily available through other platforms.
We would really love to see a FatFonts type by, let say, Erik
Spiekermann."

In the gallery, you can see an infographic based
on a map of human impacts on global oceans, originally developed by
Halpern et al. (2008), that Dr Timothy Stojanovic (Sustainable
Development) and Dr Carson Farmer (Centre for
GeoInformatics) at the University of St Andrews are using to
link off-shore cumulative human impacts to on-shore terrestrial
urbanization.

Comments

Surely the solution to the '7' problem is to use the unambigious continental 7 with the horizontal line through it. More area to play with so less thickness required to achieve the same heaviness per unit of area.

EdShift

May 30th 2012

I applaud the attempt, but the range from 0 to 9 is very limiting. I'd bet people can determine the values of 10 hue steps as accurately as reading those numbers. Where humans run into trouble is determining a value from a much larger scale. Imagine this scale 0=red, 99=blue; now there's 100 steps between endpoints. What specific value is associated with that purply-blue color? Another issue: Which of these two numbers will show with more impact: 111 or 99?Future advancement: Expand on the same idea and create numbers 0 to 100. If possible, use an OpenType Font Advanced Typographic Extension, similar to ligatures, to swap out individual typed numbers for the purpose built alternative. E.g. when someone types a 9 then another 9 those two numbers get swapped out for a 99 character that is properly weighted.